Fact Check: Community Choice Lowers Energy Rates

Statement: “It’s been incredible to watch the outcome of the programs in Sonoma and Marin because they’ve been extremely successful and they’ve been able to provide lower rates to all residences and all businesses in Marin and Sonoma with a higher renewable energy content,” Climate Action Campaign executive director Nicole Capretz said during a Jan. 25 appearance on NBC San Diego’s “Politically Speaking.”

Determination: True

Analysis: A handful of California communities have opted to stop relying solely on utilities to buy energy. San Diego environmentalists want that option to exist here.

Mayor Kevin Faulconer surprised progressives last fall when he announced he’d largely stick with their plan, though he was less committal about starting a CCA in San Diego.

Advocates of CCAs have repeatedly claimed they usher in lower prices and more renewable sources. Customers might fixate on their bill, but that latter point is important too: The state has mandated that 33 percent of the electricity that utilities provide must come from renewable sources by 2020.

One of the advocates pushing for a local CCA option is Nicole Capretz, who helped write a draft of the city’s Climate Action Plan when she worked for Todd Gloria during his stint as interim mayor.

Capretz, who now leads a group dedicated to ensuring the Climate Action Plan’s approval, claimed in a Jan. 25 appearance on NBC San Diego’s “Politically Speaking” that CCA programs in Marin and Sonoma counties offer lower rates for all customers.

She’s right.

Every year, utility Pacific Gas and Electric and the community choice aggregators – Marin Clean Energy and Sonoma Clean Power – issue rate-comparison documents that analyze prices in all customer classes.

The most recent reports were based on October 2014 prices and show that the CCAs offered lower rates in every class – from industrial to low-income residential – and relied more on renewable energy sources. (You can check out the documents here and here.)

Here’s a look at how the three most popular customer classes fared with PG&E versus the two CCAs as of October.

PG&E has since increased its rates, upping residential customers’ bills by an average of 5.9 percent.

The CCAs are able to keep rates comparatively lower through the collective buying power of their tens of thousands of customers to negotiate lower rates with electricity companies. Residents and businesses are automatically enrolled in the programs and must proactively opt out to return to PG&E.

CCAs also come out ahead when it comes to the mix of energy offered to customers.

The numbers are clear: CCAs in Marin and Sonoma are offering lower rates with a higher renewable energy content, making Capretz’s claim true.

That could make CCAs particularly attractive to San Diegans facing hefty power bills. The latest numbers from the California Public Utilities Commission show SDG&E customers paid more on average per kilowatt hour last month than users of the state’s other top utilities.

The initial Climate Action Plan released when City Councilman Todd Gloria was interim mayor called for the city to create a CCA by 2020. But Faulconer’s draft plan was less committed to the concept. It says the City Council will consider a CCA “or another program that increases the renewable energy supply.”

State law bars utilities from speaking out against CCAs but SDG&E lobbied City Council members last year in support of a state bill widely seen as detrimental to CCAs. The legislation ultimately died in the state Senate.

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